A pause. “I’m not sure what you expect me to say. She’s not here.”

“You weren’t seeing her? You weren’t with her? Any time in the last few days?”

“No, I wasn’t seeing her. I haven’t seen her. Look, I barely know her, really.”

Which was a protest too far. He knew her, and he liked her hanging around, and we all knew it. “Listen, she just up and quit, out of the blue, totally out of character . . .”

“She quit? Well, none of my business.” His words were coming out clipped, irritated.

“When did you last see her?”

A sharp exhale. “I guess Friday night. With you. Listen, if that’s all . . .”

“Just, can I give you my number? So you can let me know if she calls you?”

He sniffed. “She wouldn’t. I mean, she doesn’t even have my number. Sorry, but I gotta go.”

The call disconnected, and I stared at the man behind the bar. He hadn’t moved during the entire conversation.

Hadn’t Trevor written his number on her hand just a few nights earlier? Or did he think I hadn’t noticed?

The man walked around the bar, hand extended for his phone. “I recognize you,” he said, and my shoulders tensed on instinct. “You come in with that girl sometimes, the one with the dark hair?”

“Elyse,” I said. “That’s Elyse.” How had I never noticed this man? Maybe that was why he seemed vaguely familiar. I wondered if this was the owner or the manager, maybe even the source of the establishment’s name.

He nodded once, ran his hand back through his thinning hair, laced with a healthy dose of gray. “Can’t say I’m surprised she quit. The amount of time she’s here, I’m surprised she hasn’t been fired by now.”

I didn’t respond, started walking for the door. This was no time for his judgmental tone. The nights we came out, we were blowing off steam. It was how people functioned.

There were other logical possibilities, I knew, about where Elyse might be. She could’ve still been in her building, in another apartment down the hall. Or maybe when I’d arrived, she’d been at the glass-walled gym, which I hadn’t even thought to check.

And that was why her door had been left unlocked.

I was jumping to conclusions, seeing this place like Rick might now, with a different history, with its hidden dangers lurking under the surface. Operating like a detective, digging into the life of someone who probably just wanted to be left alone, threatening to turn her life into chaos for no reason.

A body in the yard could do that to you.

“Hey,” the man called, snapping his fingers. “I know where I’ve heard your name.”

I’d just reached the glass doors, but I stopped walking, turned slowly. Held my breath.

“Olivia Meyer. Right. That guy ever find you?”

I blinked twice. I knew someone had asked for me on Friday night, and I’d assumed it was Jonah. I wasn’t sure how this man knew about that. “Which guy?”

“Don’t know. He came in a few times last week. Each time, he’d ask for you by name. I didn’t know who you were until just now.”

I scrolled through the old photos on my phone until I pulled up one of me and Jonah. It took a while to find; all the photos I had of us had been taken alone, in the confines of our own privacy. Jonah hated any pictures at all but occasionally indulged me. How secretive we thought we had been.

I turned the photo the man’s way now. In it, Jonah was sitting on the sofa in my old apartment, watching television; I’d slouched across him to get the shot of us both. Jonah looked like he was smiling, but really, he’d been saying, What are you doing?

“Is this him?” I asked.

The man leaned forward, narrowing his eyes. “No, not that one, dear.” His face stretched into a smile for the first time, and it was unnerving.

My stomach lurched. “Do you remember what he looked like? What he said?”

“Not really. Maybe a little older than this one,” he said, pointing to my phone. “When you work at a place like this, you get to know pretty quickly what someone is after, though. Just like your friend Elyse.”

His eyes were twinkling, and I knew he was enjoying this. That he got his kicks out of knowing more than everyone else, seeing everything.

If it wasn’t Jonah, and it was an older man, I could place my bet. Most likely, Sean Coleman had come to the bar Friday evening, looking for me. He’d been in the bar hours before me. Asking for me by name. And I’d missed him, or he’d missed me. And then he ended up outside my house. I didn’t think the police had gotten this far—to the bar. They’d worked fast, interviewing the people at the G&M, where I’d seen him last.

“He was in here more than once, the guy asking for me?” I asked, ignoring his tone. How long had Sean Coleman been here, looking for me? Following me?

“He definitely had a vested interest,” he said, not answering my question directly.

“What day?” I asked.

“Does it matter? I don’t remember the day, but I can guess what he wanted.” He took a few steps closer. “You seem like a nice girl, and I have a daughter about your age, so I’ll tell you the same thing I told her. Men that much older—”

“I’m all set with advice, thanks. Unless you’ve seen Elyse.” I raised an eyebrow, gripped the handle of the glass door. I could be outside in two seconds, to my car in ten. The keys were in my purse; I could grab them on the way.

He rocked back on his heels, not coming any closer. “In that case . . .” He trailed off, gesturing toward the door.

I SWUNG BY ELYSE’S apartment building once more before heading home. I’d convinced myself that the disorder inside was just typical Elyse, home late, home drunk, dropping her bag, pulling out her clothes, falling into bed.

Had I not seen a room like this before? Hadn’t I lived with that myself? Which was why the memory prickled: I was projecting.

My mother worked nontraditional hours, too, as a health care aide, before she completely imploded. She was contracted by several different clients for home care, with a rotating schedule. If she was asleep in the middle of the day, I’d worry, shaking her awake, only to learn she’d just gotten back and didn’t have to return until the next day. It was impossible to know whether she was keeping up with her job until she was home for good.

Chaos always nagged at me, worried me, like a precursor to some danger that only I could see coming.

When I returned, Elyse’s car was no longer in the lot. I again waited for someone to open the front door, walked down that same hallway, knocked on her apartment door, which now had the sticky note removed.

Of course Elyse had been back. She was fine, and I was overreacting—the panic and disorientation over one thing coloring everything else.

When she didn’t answer my knocking, I checked the knob, and this time it was locked. I knocked again, but there was no response. I called her as I walked outside, but her phone by now was off. The call went straight to voicemail.

She’d quit, and now she was avoiding me.

I CALLED BENNETT ON the drive back home. “Elyse went totally off the grid,” I said. I was surprised he even picked up; he was usually a stickler for the rules of leaving his phone in his locker while he was working.